Chapter 4
When Calliope comes to and her eyes fully open, they're still heavy and as much as she wants to let them shut, she realizes she's not in her room and they stay open.
The events of the day come back to her and she sits up, her head throbbing and muscles aching and lungs burning with every slow breath she takes to calm herself. There are two women sitting at the edge of the bed. Their heads twist to look at her and Calliope falls off the bed in her haste to get away as she tries to figure out where she is.
She quickly backs into a corner and feels for her pocket knife, nearly sighing in relief when she finds that no one took it from her.
She's not in the Red Room and somehow the fact that she's somewhere else scares her more.
Maybe it's because she doesn't know how this place operates. She knows how the Red Room works. It's bad but she's grown to expect what's going to happen next.
But this, this is different and new and unpredictable and that makes it bad.
So she keeps her knife near and thinks of how she'd throw it if they came too close.
"Calliope, we don't want to hurt you." One with a soft expression says, her palms open and facing Calliope.
"Where's Katya?" She demands, refusing to believe what she says.
The other sighs and the two share a glance, one of apprehension.
"Did you kill her?" Calliope manages to breathe out, shuddering at the thought of the only person who cares about her gone.
"No!" They object in unison, seemingly appalled by the idea.
"Explain." She requests. If they didn't kill Katya and aren't going to hurt her, what do they want?
They do. They tell her their names, Annika and Nicola, where Katya is, and what she's doing here. She's a little more than stunned when they tell her she's in surgery. Her heart feels like it's beating too fast and she's not getting enough air and-
Calliope doesn't want any more explaining after that. She doesn't know what the soldiers did to her sister but it must be bad if she's in surgery for it.
What if Katya dies?
The thought makes her want to cry and she does, startling the two with her sobs.
Just then another woman comes in, announcing her presence with a "hey". Calliope wishes she could back herself into the corner even further and she pulls her knees to her chest to half-complete her wish, wincing at each sore muscle. The woman ushers the others out of the room and sits in front of Calliope.
She finds herself relaxing slightly at the woman's upturned palms and slouching posture, where usually someone from the Red Room would stand over her to assert their dominance, hands clasped behind his or her back.
She says her name is Natasha Romanoff and Calliope finds that name somewhat familiar. When she says that she, too, was part of the Red Room, it clicks. Dreykov never stopped talking about two people in particular, The White Widow and The Black Widow, two of Dreykov's most renowned Widows.
Right.
And Katya is still in surgery. Being operated on. Because of her. No, no, for her.
Calliope's not sure which is worse.
Focusing on that makes her head hurt so she focuses on what Natasha said about the dust to fully clear the fog swimming around in her head.
Calliope tells her when she's ready and tracks her movements. She ejects the dust into the air and when it falls onto Calliope's face, it makes her feel like someone pulled cotton balls out through her ears. Everything was foggy and muddled and not knowing exactly how to feel made her want to cry.
And she does, again, Natasha tentatively reaching out for her and Calliope clinging to her the second she gets close enough.
Natasha is warm and comfortable and strong and safe, so Calliope will stay there until Natasha tells her to get up.
She hopes Natasha doesn't want her to get up.
But she prepares for it anyway until Natasha tells her to relax, just like her pretend mother would. Just like she did hours before. Calliope cries a little harder because her mother is dead, the fake one and maybe the real one too, and things are going to be different now. This is all too new.
She doesn't like that.
But she likes this, being held by Natasha. She hopes she'll stay long enough to get used to it. Being held by her is a lot like handing over her control, but so much better because it feels like giving Natasha everything that weighs her down. Something in her kind of just...knows Natasha will take care of her problems. She hopes so.
Maybe Natasha will take care of Calliope, too.
Natasha seems to care that she's sick and doesn't even make her go back to school. She even asks Calliope if she wants to go back in the first place, which is kind of mind blowing but it makes her chest tighten in a good way.
When Natasha moves her to get up easier so they can get food, Calliope can't stop herself from making a noise. Where did that come from? What is she doing? She's about to pull back in absolute horror but Natasha hoists her up and tells her to hold on and carries her into the kitchen.
Now she really has to get down and when Natasha sets her down to talk on the phone, she jumps up to sit on top of the kitchen island and pulls out her knife again, trying to focus on the feel of it in her hands with everything else running through her head.
She kicks her feet against the cabinet below wondering when they'll tell her to stop. If they tell her to stop at all. Because Natasha's on the phone and Annika and Nicola are watching a show and they're sure to tell her to stop because she's making too much noise. They have to.
But they don't. She huffs in frustration but she doesn't even know what she's frustrated about. She doesn't want them to be upset with her.
She doesn't know what she wants. She doesn't want them to be mad at her but she wants something similar to the life she had before.
She wants Katya.
She wants her sister but she doesn't know if she should ask to see her because how long is the surgery supposed to be? She racks her brain for information and she comes up with nothing, flipping her knife open and closed and open and closed because she's frustrated.
Natasha ends her phone call with an "I love you" and Calliope wonders who she's talking to. She knows Natasha is an Avenger but Black Widows are women of many identities, and she's sure being an Avenger isn't her only title.
She can't find out because suddenly Natasha's attention is on her again and they're asking her what she likes.
"I don't know." She mumbles, her thick accent making her words sound off. They take her admission in stride and start talking about what food they have.
There are plenty of options but an idea pops into her mind and before she can tell herself that she's being childish she blurts, "pancakes?"
And they say yes, they tell her she can have pancakes and she doesn't know what she was expecting. Probably for them to say no. Yeah, she was expecting them to say no.
But they don't because she's not in Greece with her fake parents anymore. She's in New York with Natasha and Nicola and Annika and Katya but not really because Katya's in surgery and they aren't really together.
Katya would like pancakes. If both of their fake parents happened to be gone then Katya would make pancakes, night or day, even after school. They'd sit at the table, Katya doing all of the talking when Calliope couldn't find it within herself to open her mouth.
Katya would probably do all the talking now, too, but she's in surgery, and Annika does most of the talking this time.
Calliope would really rather Katya be there instead, but Annika, Nicola, and Natasha will do for now.
God, and she can't even go see her sister unless she does something drastic. Like murder or incapacitation or something. But she really likes the three of them and she'd have to run if she did something bad.
But now, sitting among the three of them eating pancakes, leaning against Natasha, she doesn't feel like she has to run, or kill anybody, or do anything else to survive. And she thinks that's pretty neat.
What's even neater is that she gets to see Katya after they eat the best pancakes she's ever had (second next to the ones Katya makes). Natasha takes a long time to actually decide whether or not to go and wait for her to get out of surgery but she paces with Calliope in her arms and Calliope nearly
falls asleep.
She stirs awake when Nicola and Annika kiss the top of her head. Only Katya's ever done that and it was a shock for the both of them so Katya never did it again and Calliope pretended that she wasn't excited by the fondness. She pretends again after the moment of contact fades.
Besides, she didn't really do anything to...deserve it. Their affection. She'd stop clinging to Natasha if she didn't enjoy it so much because there was just nothing she did to deserve it.
But they didn't seem to want anything in return for now so she pushes down the feeling of excitement the endearment gave her and allows herself to doze against Natasha's shoulder.
She doesn't get excited often, and when she does, it feels like there are butterflies in her chest. They're restless and they make her want to laugh and jump and do something, and Katya was the only one who would encourage her to do so. The only place she could do that is at school, where people would say mean things.
Sometimes, if she was lucky, a girl in the hallway, one of the nice ones, would look at her and say her hair looked nice or compliment her outfit and she'd smile and say thank you and live off of that one compliment until people were mean again. She'd refrain from squealing in excitement and jumping up and down to avoid the looks. The looks people gave her when she smiled too much but also the looks they'd give when she didn't have any expression at all.
Calliope never knew the rules there. She thought she knew how to act, but even mimicking everyone else didn't work after a certain point. It was easy to break down in the bathroom where no one could make fun of her for not knowing the rules or what to say or how to act. Katya would always come, even though Calliope knew she liked being with her friends. Katya would never make fun of her.
It was also easy to let all her butterflies out with Katya for that reason. Anywhere else with anyone else, it always felt like there was someone clamping their hand over her mouth and forcing her hands by her sides. There were always cinder blocks on her shoulders, constantly weighing her down. Her butterflies always get caught and put in a jar, and it made her sad. It makes her sad. They're stuck in the jar and Calliope's too tired to attempt to loosen the lid for them.
She fully wakes when there's a doctor talking to Natasha about Katya, and then the doctor is talking about her. Why is she talking about her?
Oh, yeah, because she's sick. She forgot because she doesn't have time to be sick. There are so many things she has to do! She's gotta give a mission report and know how to act and what to say to get more information tomorrow when she goes back to school, and-
Yup, she sees what's wrong here.
Okay, recap.
Alright, she's not going back to school. Her handlers are dead, so she's with Natasha now. Katya has just gotten out of surgery, and Calliope's...still sick. And she needs a chest x-ray to get diagnosed or whatever the doctor says.
She's not really paying attention to whatever the doctor says next because now she's gotta do a thing.
But she's exhausted. And the machine looks scary. What if it hurts her?
It takes a long time to calm her down enough to stand still but when she does it, it only takes a few minutes. And it doesn't hurt, which is a relief.
After, she falls asleep sandwiched between her sister and her Natasha.
The revelation that Natasha is hers now (or maybe she's Natasha's?) shakes the jar inside her chest and gets the butterflies riled up. She resists the urge to laugh and settle them and falls asleep with what is probably the widest smile she can ever remember doing.
She sleeps relatively soundly despite the ache in her lungs. She only wakes up once during the night and it was to cough and also out of instinct that something was wrong. She's quickly calmed by Natasha running a hand over her head and sitting her up to give her water she set on the nightstand.
When Calliope wakes up the next morning, her and Katya sit in bed and watch cartoons while Annika and Nicola leave to pick up their sisters. Natasha had failed to tell them she lived with any other people besides Annika and Nicola, let alone her children.
"Do you think they'll like us?" Calliope asks. She doesn't know anything about them except their names and ages, and they could be just like the kids at school.
"They'll like you just fine. Who couldn't like the two of you?" Natasha answers with a smile.
Calliope almost laughs and Katya huffs out a breath of air and tilts her head with a quick raise of her eyebrows, almost as if to say, "lots of people".
The amount of times Katya got suspended for beating up almost every kid who made fun of Calliope and the times Calliope ended up sitting in the principal's office with their parents and the child involved who bullied her, plus their parents, proves just how much people tend not to like them. She's surprised her sister hadn't gotten expelled.
Even back in the Red Room, people didn't like her. They'd pick on her because she was better than most in her group, even among the older girls and women she was placed with. There was one woman in the most recent section she was placed in that she couldn't remember the name of who she got put on missions with all the time.
Of course, the Red Room had to ruin everything and Calliope had to kill her, but she would laugh and jump with Calliope when she got excited and she'd encourage her to ramble about whatever was on her mind and she showed Calliope how to live, even if only for a few days every few weeks or so.
She hopes Natasha's daughters were like that.
When Annika and Nicola come back with them, they're all smiles and laughter. When they notice that Calliope prefers Greek over English they don't make her speak English and when Calliope and Katya agree to watch SpongeBob SquarePants they watch with them. It's like when they used to watch cartoons early in the mornings, just with more people.
"Ooh, are we watching cartoons? I love cartoons." Holland says, fully invested in the show.
"Hey!" Aurelia interjects, glaring at Holland. "You said you didn't like cartoons when I asked if you wanted to watch with me the other morning."
"I said that because I didn't want to watch with you, Aurelia."
Aurelia flips her off and Holland sticks out her tongue and Tallulah covers Calliope's eyes and gasps in fake shock. "There's a baby present, be nice."
She smiles and removes Tallulah's hand. "I'm not a baby!"
"But you're the youngest, so you're the baby." Katya points out with a shrug.
Calliope can barely find it within herself to be mad because this is nice. Nicer than anything she's ever had.
When the doctor, who's name she eventually learns is Doctor Carson, comes back to dress Katya's burn and make sure they're in proper condition and make sure they take their medicine, Tallulah, Inessa, Aurelia and Holland slowly but surely make their way over to hover around the bed and eye the doctor like they'd do something extreme if she made a wrong move, the way Katya did before all this happened. A silent but sure, "we've got your back". Calliope likes that feeling, the one of someone looking after her. Katya always did it before and now she's got even more people to look after her now. Both of them do, and it's nice just existing without constantly worrying. It's strange at first, but nice.
After the doctor leaves, Natasha asks what they want for breakfast and they say they want pancakes, and what a coincidence because guess what Calliope wants? Pancakes. And when Natasha insists they get something else they groan and complain and honestly? Calliope likes them.
She likes the way Aurelia laughs really loud and the way Holland never sits right in a chair, and she thinks it's funny the way they bicker with each other. She likes Annika's singing and the way Nicola knows a lot of facts about everything. She likes how Tallulah smiles and the way Inessa gets excited the same way she does, all jumping and squealing.
And Natasha. She likes everything about Natasha. Natasha makes sure they eat and take their medicine and she tells them stories when they can't fall asleep. She sings and hums when she's doing things and although no one has made Calliope laugh yet, Natasha tries. She tries harder than their fake parents ever did. Natasha reminds Calliope of the woman in the Red Room. The woman told her not to let the Red Room break her and Natasha ensures that she stays whole.
She likes them all.
Calliope likes them all very much, and although they're a lot...different from what she's been used to for the past twelve years of her life, she thinks she could get used to something new. Just this once.